Children who spent more than three hours using social networking websites on a school day were twice as likely to report high or very high scores for mental ill-health.

The Children’s Well-being 2015 publication, which for the first time includes an analysis of data on children’s mental ill-health, revealed that of those who were online for more than three hours, 27% reported high or very high scores for mental ill-health.

This is more than double those spending no time on them (12%) or those spending up to three hours on social media (11%).